


Where We Stand

by YHF18



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 02:39:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14844038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YHF18/pseuds/YHF18
Summary: A revealing video forces Javi and Yuzu to carefully evaluate their relationship. This takes place sometime after Fantasy on Ice 2018.





	Where We Stand

 

The video didn’t gain much traction at first, which wasn’t surprising. Fantasy on Ice had just completed its run, and there had been broadcasts of the show, numerous pictures and videos to mollify the fans, so there was little need for anyone to closely inspect every video and picture for sightings of Yuzuru.

But someone had noticed. In one of the rehearsal videos for the show, in the background, standing next to the side boards were Yuzuru and Javier. They were watching the other skaters and talking. Yuzuru seemed to be adjusting his pants, reaching his hand around to scratch just below his waist where a tag must have been bothering him. As Yuzuru turned around to drink from his water bottle, Javier leaned over to help him with the offending tag, pulling out the waistband to get a better look. It could have been one of their usual bromancey moments, but this particular moment lasted a few seconds longer than even the fans most ardently on the side of “they’re just good friends” could have justified.

And then, as if to erase any remaining doubt, Javier licked his fingers and rubbed the itchy strip of skin with his spit. It was a gesture that countless parents attempting to soothe a mosquito bite or an itch might have recognized, but there was nothing paternal about this gesture, especially after Javier’s palm came to rest just below Yuzuru’s waist and stayed there. Yuzuru turned to face him, and they stood in half embrace, never taking their eyes off each other, as Yuzuru continued to talk and Javier leaned in so close their noses were almost touching. They were both laughing now, but the air around them seemed charged and thick, like that between two lovers whose hunger for each other is so palpable, the laws of the universe bend in their orbit. And that was the extent of it, as the music stopped and the skaters disbanded, making way for the next group, and whoever was taking the video, thinking the interesting part to be over, turned off the camera.  

\---------

But someone had noticed and eventually, the moment between them became the subject of countless stills, gifs and internet gossip. Brian found out when a friend brought the video to his attention. It wasn’t as if he was surprised. He had seen interactions like this numerous times during practice, but Javier always had girlfriends and Yuzuru studiously avoided talking about anything besides figure skating, so it was one of those thoughts he shelved in the back of his mind, though he had to admit, it was taken off the shelf and needed to be reshelved so many times he thought of hiring a stockperson just for the purpose.  

Brian was in Granada to do a summer camp with Javier and he resolved not to say anything to him, unless Javier brought it up first. But Javier didn’t need much prodding. It was all over his face when he arrived that morning, an hour before the first lesson was scheduled to start.

“How are you doing?” Brian had hoped to give Javier an opening without making him feel pressured to talk if he wasn’t ready. Javier slowly sat down on the bench next to Brian and leaned his head back against the wall.

“Not great. You might have heard. I stuck my hand down Yuzu’s pants and someone filmed it.”

“Yeah.”

“What do you think I should do?”

 “Well, what do you want to do?”

“Brian, what I want to do and what I should do or could do have always been two different things, when it comes to this.” Javier waved his hands around as if the air itself was what perplexed him.

Brian didn’t have to ask him what “this” was but he sensed from Javier’s growing agitation that it would be helpful to step back and slowly walk him through it.

“Humor me then, tell me what ‘this’ is.”

“This thing between me and Yuzu,” Javier sighed.

“Is it serious? How long has it been going on?”

“It started a few months after he got to TCC.”

“What?!” Brian knew he should play it cool but he could barely contain his displeasure, “Yuzu was like 16.”

“Almost 18. I know. But look, in my defense, he was...encouraging.”

Brian felt like screaming, “Oh, for god’s sakes, I’m glad I’m only finding this out now, Yumi and JSF would have had my head on a platter.” But by now Brian had learned to pick his battles and bite his tongue when talking to his skaters, if he wanted them to continue confiding in him. And this particular battle had been already clearly lost, so he continued, “Okay, but it ended at some point? You seemed to be in and out of other relationships this whole time.”

“Yes and no. I mean, Yuzu wanted to stop at some point because he thought it interfered with his skating. But it wasn’t really that easy to just stop, so we just kind of continued...without continuing.”  

“Okay. You’re going to have to be a little more clear if you want me to help you.”

“Sorry, it’s not something I’ve had to explain to another person before. We’re just together when one of us needs it or wants it. There isn’t any expectation. It’s not like we hang out and talk about our day or whatever.”

“What did your girlfriends think of this?”

“I guess they all figured it out eventually. I mean, his clothes and stuff are all over my apartment. If he didn’t put his name on every damn thing, it might not have been so obvious.”

“Yes, that would be a strong clue.”

“They said stuff like, they didn’t feel I was invested in the relationship. But it’s not like I didn’t try. I tried. It’s just, I don’t feel for anyone what I feel for Yuzu. I just don’t have a name for it. Sometimes it feels a little unreal.”

“I’m a little surprised you guys got so close. You don’t have a lot in common.”

Javier almost responded by bringing up sex, explaining that even from the very beginning, they seemed to know what the other person wanted and never had to ask, that when his hands gripped Yuzu’s body, Javier knew instinctively from the vibrations and movement of his muscles and skin what he wanted, how much and where. But Brian was their coach after all, and while Javier could and did tell him many things, the intimate details of his relationship with Brian’s other top student were likely not one of those things. And the truth was, it wasn’t just the sex. It was the training, the pain they endured together, the mental and physical exhaustion of competitions, and the deflation afterwards. They understood all of this, the most essential part of themselves, just by looking at each other. So Javier said only, “A lot of it is instinct. We seem to instinctively understand each other.”

“What’s keeping you apart? Is he still afraid a relationship would be too distracting?

“I don’t know, it’s not like we have weekly check-ins. We’ve never had a normal relationship. Sometimes he goes for months without talking to me outside of practice. But you know, I don’t need to talk to him. I already know, his family, all the people talking about us, the media, the judges. Those things matter a lot to him.”  

“I think you matter a lot to him.”

“I don’t know what I am to him. Maybe we can just deny or ignore the gossip. We’ve done stuff before that make people talk and then they forget about it.”

Brian interjected, feeling Javier was about to wander down a path that would not lead him where he wanted to go, “You might be right, that the video wasn’t definitive, but I think you are underestimating the optics of it. People will ask you, especially the media and you’re going to have to come up with a strategy to respond. I don’t think you can count on it just going away. But set that question aside for now. You should figure out first, what do you want to do?”

“Look, if it were up to me, I'd like for us to be more than what we are now. But I'd take things as they are, even if it's very little. I don’t want to think about where the other pieces fall.”

“You have to think a little. Are you ready for how it may affect your life, your plans?”

“I didn’t mean to be flip.” Javier looked at Brian with a bemused expression, “I don’t know why you and Yuzu always assume I haven’t thought things through. I grew up fighting with hockey players at the rink calling me a girl. What’s this going to say to the kids in Spain I want to encourage to skate? That the hockey players were right? I don’t know what people will think. But the life that other people see for me is not my life and it’s not enough to make me happy in my real life. To be honest, when the video came out, I was worried, but I was also relieved.”

“Relief?” Brian was surprised but started to understand.

“Yes, relief. I feel like we’ve been stuck and afraid to do anything, but someone went and unstuck it for us. We have to at least admit to each other that there’s something. It’s right there in the video.”

“I think the two of you need to discuss this.”

At this point, the skaters were already starting to file in, so Javier began to collect his things, “Well, I doubt I’ll have a choice. I’m sure he’ll have a few things to say to me when I get back to the hotel.”

“What? He’s here?”

“He’s arriving this afternoon. We had been planning to hang out a little, before everything went to shit.”

 --------

When he returned to the room that night, Javier found Yuzuru in the living room area of their suite sitting calm, but uninviting on one end of the compact sofa. Javier sat down stiffly, not daring to touch him. They didn’t have a lot of practice, with the chit chat. Usually, they would just pick up where they had left off, but this wasn’t a conversation - about their relationship, what they wanted from it - that either had ever even initiated in their six years together.

Javier thought it couldn’t hurt to start with an apology, “I’m sorry I put us in this mess.”

Yuzuru’s face softened and he patted Javier’s back, but it was perfunctory rather than warm, “Not your fault, Javi. We both careless. Is done now.”

Javier turned to look at him, “It’s okay with me if you want to strongly deny it.”

After a long silence, Yuzuru said softly, “If you want to, Javi, I will deny it. I know this will give you trouble in Spain, maybe with things you want to do after skating.” But he continued, with some hesitance, “For me, I don’t want to. I’m not going to announce to the media, but I will live my life the way I want.”

This was not the answer Javier expected and it stirred something in him, long pushed beyond the margins of conscious thought, that he never allowed himself to hope or ask for. Javier sat there unable to look at Yuzuru, afraid that if he looked and saw that he had misunderstood, he might never be able to recover from the disappointment.

Yuzuru persisted, “I know this is hard for you, Javi. I know I don’t have the words to say to you what I feel, what I want, so I don’t say them.”

“It’s okay, Yuzu, I know. You don’t have to tell me.”

But Yuzuru, who was so articulate and expressive in Japanese, where he was often limited and frustrated in English, wanted desperately to tell Javier and make him understand, “When I first came to Toronto, we didn’t have any words, so we just used our faces and hands and bodies. I think we get too used to it and even though we have more words now, we stopped trying to be more.”

For Javier, whose instinct was often to seek contentment rather than to push, this was dangerous territory and he suddenly became awash in fear and panic, “Yuzu, I’m not greedy. I don’t need more. I will take whatever it is we have right now over not having anything at all. Because when you tell your family, when this affects your skating, you will regret all of this. You will regret me.”

Yuzuru silently pulled Javier close and gently set his head on his lap, as Javier curled his body to fit the length of the couch. Yuzuru intently smoothed down a patch of unruly hair behind Javier’s ear and then leaned in to kiss it. “I take the risk. Will you take it with me? We cannot know right now how it will end, what people say or do. But I know what I want. Yes, is safer to keep this secret but secrets go nowhere and one day we become tired of nowhere.”

“Because we’re stuck in one place.”

“Yes, stuck. For a long time, is okay for me because I feel you in my heart, even if I don’t have words to explain. But now, I think we can be more. I fear, If we don’t try, one day, it can be erased, never exist. Years from now, when we see each other, will you shake hands with me? Will you introduce me to your family? When I leave, will you say to them, ‘We were really good rivals, but we were not close. I didn’t know him well.’ That would be the truth too, wouldn’t it?”

“That would be the truth too,” Javier admitted sadly, “Sometimes I think it’s in my head, the closeness, that it is a memory of something that didn’t actually happen and if I choose to forget or ignore it, it would disappear easily.”

“And if it disappears, it will make me very regretful. It’s like we do things backwards. We skip things people do to know each other.  But I would like to know you, not just love you. I want to have things like, we make dinner together and it tastes bad; I want to stay in bed in the morning until you wake up, nowhere else to go; I want to say out loud, Javi’s hand feels heavy on my hand, his skin touches my skin the way I like. Do you understand? Do you want to know me too?”

By this time, Javier had sat up to face Yuzuru, “I’ve always wanted to, but I never let myself. Are you sure Yuzuru?” He said his name, his full first name, so carefully and slowly it was both a caress and a plea.

Yuzuru nodded and said simply, “I’m sure.” He rested his hand on Javier’s chest so lightly, Javier might have missed it but for the fact that it felt like a salve for the bursting, long-suppressed fervor of his own emotions. And for the first time in the six years that they had been together, it was Javier who put his head on Yuzuru’s shoulder and wept, while Yuzuru held him, his thin frame enclosing Javier so tightly, it was hard to tell where they ended and began.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This is story #1 in my series on Yuzuru and Javier. They are consistent and connect in terms of characterization and other details, but they are standalone stories and don't build up to anything in particular.


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